YouTube Video EM1 - Craig A. Stevens Facilitating Systematic and Repeatable Excellent Management

YouTube Video EM2 - Craig A. Stevens and the Lower Part of the Mobile.

YES, YOU CAN ACHIEVE EXCELLENT MANAGEMENT! 

By Evelyn Williams, Lisa Lewis, and support from Craig Stevens 

       The Seven Attributes of Excellent Management developed by Craig Stevens, explains that excellent management is like a mobile. It has to be in balance to be excellent. With a mobile if you remove any one piece, it is out of balance. Likewise, remove any one of the Seven Attributes of Excellent Management and the organization itself is out of balance. These seven attributes of excellent management are (1) leadership, (2) culture, (3) customer focus, (4) team building, (5) problem solving and skill enhancement, (6) continuous improvement and change management, and (7) performance measures. No one attribute will work alone and the entire system is ineffective if any one piece is missing. 

Step one: 

      Fix leadership. Think of leadership as the hand holding the mobile; it guides the whole organization. Leadership influences the activities of individuals toward achieving goals. (Hersey, Blanchard, Johnson 79) An effective leader leads through a vision and a shared set of values and objectives. (Hersey, Blanchard, Johnson 79) 

Step two: 

      Build a strong organizational culture. Think of the organizational culture as the string on which the mobile hangs; it supports the other elements. Cut the string and everything falls apart. Likewise, without a strong working culture, an organization will never benefit from programs like TQM, continuous improvement, six sigma, quality management, or any other management system. Without a strong working culture, the organization will fail. (Westbrook Stevens) 

Step three: 

      Focus on the customer. Customer focus is like the bar on which everything depends; customers are the number one priority. They are the reason and the driving force behind an organization's mission. (Westbrook Stevens 12) Customers are assets; organizations should work to understand, nurture, and protect their lifetime value. (Hersey, Blanchard, Johnson 366) 

Step four: 

      Build strong teams. An organization's competitiveness is directly related to its ability to use the skills and knowledge of their people effectively. Teamwork is the best way to do this. (Hersey, Blanchard, Johnson 323) 

Step five: 

      Master problem solving and enhance the core competences. In order to have effective and efficient teams of people, train them. Continuously learn as an organization. People working together, using their skills, are your competitive advantage. 

Step six: 

      Improve continuously and master change. Continuous improvement is necessary for a business to grow and thrive in a competitive environment; (Hersey, Blanchard, Johnson 388) this means organizations must initiate all aspects of changes; changes that are evolutionary as well as revolutionary. (Westbrook Stevens 15) 

Step seven: 

      Measure performance. Performance measures help the organization to understand processes, bring them under control, and improve them. (Walton 96) 

      Order is also important. Excellent leadership is first. Everyone must be a leader, from janitor to CEO. Leaders at every level must lead and understand their jobs better than anyone else. The organizational culture must be externally competitive, internally supportive, and customer focused. Team of people must work together, using highly tuned skills to continuously improve. Moreover, you will never know if you are improving or not unless you measure performance. (Westbrook Stevens 13) 

WORK CITED 

1.) Hersey, Paul, Kenneth H. Blanchard, Dewey E. Johnson, Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001. 

2.) Walton, Mary. The Deming Management Method. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1986. 

3.) Westbrook Stevens, LLC. The linked Management Models. "Building a Foundation With the Seven Attributes of Excellent Management." 17 Jan. 2005. 19 pp. http://www.westbrookstevens.com/step_1.htm/

Mobile of Excellent Management is the centerpiece of the novel, Geronimo Stone: His Music, His Love, and the Mobile of Excellent Management.  In this book, the main character is the nephew of a deceased record label owner.  The label has fallen on hard times since the demise of its patriarch, but little reminders left behind by Geronimo helped Tom realize that he was equipped to be a leader.  He just needed a little help.  The mobile is simple.  Leadership holds everything in place.  The organizational culture stems from the leadership and influences the employees to buy into the customer focus.  The customer focus balances by four attributes: 1) team building, 2) problem solving, 3) continuous improvement, and 4) performance measures.  These four attributes keep the team moving and productive, which improves the customer focus.  This improvement enhances the organizational culture and makes it more positive.  The positive organizational culture motivates the leadership and helps it improve.  The cycle continues.

The Seven Attributes of Excellent Management “During Projects”

Based on the Book: www.geronimostone.com

Geronimo Stone, His Music, His Love, and the Mobile of Excellent Management,
By Craig A. Stevens and Michael Moore.

2nd Annual Symposium
“Racing Towards Project Management Excellence”
April 28, 2006 -1:00
Willis Conference Center in Nashville, Tennessee

Craig A. Stevens
University of Phoenix Nashville and Trevecca Nazarene University
Dave Ott and Michael Moore
Westbrook Stevens, LLC

Figure 1. The Mobile of Excellent Management

Abstract:

Craig A. Stevens, the author of the Geronimo Stone Series of books and the developer of The Linked Management Models to excellence in organizational change, presents this fast moving presentation. During this presentation, Craig will introduce you to Phase 1 of the Linked Management Models -- The Seven Attributes of The Mobile of Excellent Management. You will learn the appropriate order to building excellent project managers.

1. Excellent Leadership
2. Excellent Project and Organizational Culture
3. Excellent Customer Service
4. Excellent Teams
5. Excellent Skills and Problem Solving Tools
6. Excellent Change Management
7. Excellent Performance Measures

Consider the following scenario:

The word’s out… Your company has been around for just about 30 years. During this time, the company has grown and prospered under the watchful eye of a heavy-handed business genius, affectionately known as the “Old Man.” He has created not just a company, but also a family. Starting with nothing, he dragged the company through many competitive and strategic battles to grow a strong business. Business is booming, but…it’s time for him to step down. He has to retire, but who will take his place? When asked in the past, he often reasoned that he never needed to develop leaders, as they would have just gotten in the way of his decisions. Today there are fewer and fewer good leaders and managers, and time is running out.

This is the foundational plot of the Geronimo Stone books.

The truth is… it is already too late. One cannot expect to find the perfect person to take over and replace a legend. In the book Built to Last, James C. Collins, and Jerry I. Porras explained that those companies that have had a lasting impact have had certain things in common. One of their points is that companies “built-to-last” continue to prosper even as leaders changed (not based on “time tellers” but rather “clock builders”). These organizations are not reliant on great leaders who have all of the answers (like the time tellers who could miraculously tell time 100 percent of the time, just by looking at the sky). Rather, they possess entire organizational structures that could lead the company to success (more like clocks that show time long after the time teller is gone).

History of the Seven Attributes of The Mobile of Excellent Management:

Excellent Management has certain common attributes that apply to project managers. We know this for, several years ago, after researching many linear feet of writings on quality, Dr. Jerry Westbrook formed a theory about the popular quality management trends found in total quality management (TQM).

He described this often hard to understand program using six attributes that made it easy to implement. His attributes are culture, customer focus, team building, problem solving, continuous improvement, and performance measures. His theory was that one could use these six attributes to describe TQM in a way that would satisfy all of the existing definitions. Furthermore, these six attributes would give practitioners a framework on which to build a program and a way to communicate these ideas to others. He also found a link between culture and success or failure of implementing projects and program.
It all boils down to people. The number one problem companies had/have in implementing projects and programs, directly relates to the failure to prepare properly the organization’s culture to accept a change. Fix this problem and many others go away.
 

Craig Stevens developed the graphics related to the Westbrook attributes, for a presentation on “Quality Management in Government,” for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge operations office (1993). Craig added a seventh attribute when Bruce Brevard, a colleague and U.S. Naval officer, challenged him to consider leadership as a missing attribute instead of including it in the culture attribute. Mr. Stevens verified the model with a massive search of material while he worked on his dissertation. He created a database to store and retrieve the data compiled from this broader literature search and then used a design of experiments (DOE) statistical approach using a meta analysis to look at the relationships between the attributes. Mr. Stevens discovered that each of the attributes seemed to reflect the body of the information collected. Leadership was a natural and logical addition, and there were no additional surprises within the literature reviewed, nor were new attributes needed. These seven attributes, when applied to the quality of management in general (or excellent management) describe a set of easy to understand attributes for excellent management.

Figure 2. The Mobile of Excellent Management
 

The first Step is Excellent Leadership:

To define excellent management we must start with excellent leadership. Define leadership broadly. It is more than just a few people at the top and more than just natural charismatic people in charge. Leadership is a part of every employee’s job. In the words of Victor Dingus, a one time quality manager at Tennessee Eastman,

“We used to have 14,000 people and only about 400 were paid to think. Our goal is to have 14,000 people paid to think.”

Excellent leadership is not a trait only for the top of the organization, but a skill to develop in everyone throughout the organization. If any one person cannot lead the project tasks for which they are responsible, who needs them? Janitors even have to lead janitorial tasks.

Someone once said, "The more you need your Boss, Supervisor, or Customer the less they need you."

This is only half of the story. The other half is this, you can always tell an ineffective leader by how hard that person works in relation to his or her team. Effective leaders have effective hard working teams. Effective Project Managers have effective project teams. This requires direction. If people are confused, the outcome is no work at all.
Symbolically in the mobile, leadership becomes a hand, holding the mobile’s string of culture. As with the mobile, if the hand is absent the mobile is, at best, stationary. However, symbolically with the hand, the mobile can change position, moving about the room. Likewise, without leadership in an organization, the best that happens is to stay competitively in one spot while losing competitive advantages. With good leadership, the vision, the mission, and direction is clear and the organization has competitive mobility.

When developing or incubating managers and leaders, one must think in terms of a step-by-step layering approach. Managers must understand people, an understanding that can only develop over time with perseverance fueled by a commitment. I cannot bring someone off the street, take him or her to Vanderbilt, and force him or her to become educated. Likewise, you cannot force someone to become a leader and “empower” them. Accordingly, the first step of building leaders is commitment to achieve that desire or goal. The commitment must be from both the company and the people, as in Figure 3 (Pepper and Stevens 1993).

Figure 3, Incubating Leaders

After the leader/manager is ready to deal with people from figure 3, then comes results in figure 4. To see results by getting get people to do what is needed, requires another step-by-step process. Leadership becomes the foundation, with the following layers leading to better results:

1st. Communication of Information/Goals/Expectations -- (When a true leader speaks people listen…Why? They give valuable information when they talk.);

2nd. This leads to trust and confidence (Only truthful information leads to trust);

3rd. After one is ready to trust, one is also ready to invest time in education and training;

4th. After one is trained, then empowerment is possible and ownership and cooperation in the decision making process should be expected;

5th. Evaluation should only occur after empowerment; and

6th. Recognition should follow only after good “efforts” achieve good “results.”

Figure 4, Key’s to Achieving Results

Step Two, Excellent Project and Organizational Culture:

The organization’s “Culture” is the next attribute in the Westbrook Stevens Mobile of Excellent Management. On the mobile, culture is the string on which the mobile hangs and without which the mobile falls apart. The hand is no more important than the cable; it just comes before the string. Leadership is no more important than culture; it just has to improve before culture can improve. Likewise, without a good working culture, an organization will never greatly benefit from programs like, continuous improvement, Six Sigma, quality management or any system or process. When a good working culture does not exist, it is equivalent to cutting the string holding the mobile. Cut the cultural string and the project or program will fall apart. Many programs have failed because no one ever considered the difficulty of creating a competitive and accepting culture.

One of Dr. Westbrook’s studies showed that of all the original six attributes, culture is the limiting force. It will restrict the implementation and improvement of each of the other attributes.

It is much more difficult to have a good project culture if you do not fix the organization’s culture first. However, an excellent organizational culture will not ensure an excellent project culture. To an employee, the culture of any organization or project directly relates to the personality of his or her direct supervisor.

In the literary searches, authors use certain words and concepts when talking about an organization’s culture. One may read words and phrases such as “employee’s internal environment,” “values, and ethics,” “supporting partnerships and communication.” You may read about the focus of the company. For example, the company may focus on quality or safety, or something else entirely. They may refer to having a “quality mind-set” or “quality orientation.” You may read about companies embracing change or valuing employee satisfaction. You may hear about celebrating successes or supporting training and education. Culture could be defined as having high standards and expectations or supporting empowerment and employee participation.

Figure 4. The Cable of Culture

The string of culture has many parts. From the first Geronimo Stone book, the traditional elements describing a culture make up the threads of the string. Maybe the most important one is “values.” An economy will never work correctly unless people follow the rules. Moreover, the rules have to be based on the highest moral and ethical values. In systems engineering, one might say, “The systems only works, when people follow the rules.” Do not expect successful results if the rules are not enforced.

The “worldview” is also important to culture. If you have a religious worldview, you may act in accordance with that religion. In different parts of the world, people fear demons and give offerings to gods. Some believe in no god, their religion is faith in no god. A worldview could also include political beliefs, republicanism, a democracy, communism, totalitarianism, and so on. Some peoples’ worldviews comes from positions of poverty and helplessness. The worldview is important in organizational structure; it can bring people together or keep them apart.

Other cultural issues revolve around the “language” the employees and management use. Sometimes technological terms, business codes, or acronyms segregate people.
People tend to divide themselves into subcultures. Some (but not all) people from any group or race may fall into the subculture trap. You may see it manifest in different ways. Blacks may go to lunch with other Blacks; Whites and Hispanics may talk bad about each other, and so on. Other subcultures exist based on education, religion, political leanings, even function—such as accountants vs. engineers vs. labor. Each subculture may work against the company’s interests.

“Patterns of behavior” are a part of culture. It may be associated with the time people come to work, the way people work, or the way they solve problems.
“Basic underlying assumptions” are how one feels about certain subjects. People assume things about whole groups of people. Someone once said, “We judge others not who they are, but by who we are.”

Artifacts and symbols are things like parking places with names on them, and executive dining areas.

Step Three, Excellent Customer Focus:

Customers can never be number one! (WHAT DID HE SAY?) First, leaders have to say and act as if the customers are important. Second, the organization’s culture has to accept that customers are important. “Customer Focus” is the third step.

Since the customer is the only reason you have a job, if you are not willing to satisfy the customer…then you might as well go home; you are not needed. So label the bar of the mobile on which the other elements hang, “Customer Focus.” With the mobile, the bar is important, without it, there is nothing on which to hang the other elements. Likewise, in an organization without customer focus there is no clear goal on which to hang the organization’s work. The customer is the reason for and the driving force behind an organization’s and the project’s mission. Accordingly, the customer is where an organization should focus its work.

Many people make all kinds of arguments on the difference between internal and external customers, stakeholders and customers, customers and clients, and on and on and on. Labels aside, the point simply is, who are the people you are trying to attract, satisfy, serve, communicate with, or to which you hand your product/service/work? Who is next in line to receive your efforts? Do your job to make this group happy or find a job you can do! Build Excellent Customer Service even in the project team!

Step Four, Build Excellent Teams

We all have to work together, but it will never be easy. The first Geronimo Stone book explains that teams are the power behind the company and the engine of the project. A great example of teams is from an old Career Track tape series with Mark Sanborn. He presented a list of the differences between a team and a working group. A working group he defined as just a group of people working together. One of the attributes of a team, he said, was that teams were holographic in nature.

Remember the holograph scene in the first Star Wars movie? At one point in the movie, the Swiss Army Knife of robots, R2D2, had a little video attachment that projected holographic movies. Remember how that little robot found its way to Obi-Wan Kenobi? When R2D2 was alone with him and Luke Skywalker, it projected the holographic image of Princess Leia asking for help. In holographic form, a small Princess Leia bent over, adjusted a control on R2D2, and then stood up and said something like, “Oh, Obi-Wan Kenobi, come quickly. We need you. We need you.” Mark Sanborn said that one could cut a holograph into many pieces, and each piece would not be a part of the holograph, but a complete copy of the whole picture. Therefore, if we cut up the Princess Leia holograph, we do not get an ear, an arm, and so on—not a bunch of parts of Princess Leia, but complete copies. Ten cuts would give us ten little Princess Leias, all doing the same thing at the same time.

And here is the punch line. Teams are the same way. If you divide the team, each of the members should be a copy of the team – not complete copies in looks, attitudes, skills, and personalities. Nevertheless, teams are complete copies when it comes to representing the team mission, team goals, and team agenda. Every member of the team should be a complete picture of the whole. Everyone should have the same personal mission, goals, and agenda. If they do not, you do not have a team. You just have a group of people working together.

Step Five, Excellent Skills and Problem Solving Tools

“Problem Solving” is a powerful attribute. Think of problem solving in the broader sense of the skills and core competencies to do a good job, such as problem solving tools and skills. One tool Craig Stevens developed to explain organizational problem solving to technically oriented people, is the Organizational Problem Solving Lever in figure 5.

Exhibit 5, Problem-Solving Lever

If we could view an organization’s problem or barrier as a large weight that has to be moved, then a set problem solving tools could be viewed as the lever and fulcrum used to move the weight. Relating this to projects, one could view the fulcrum and lever as the specific Project Management International’s (PMI’s), Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) related techniques. The lever itself is only as strong as the choice of problem solving tools applied. No one tool does all things. The closer the fulcrum is to the weight, the more leverage one has in moving the weight. The fulcrum gets closer as the teams’ skills in using the tool increases. The force applied to the lever is a function of teamwork and communication. To have optimal effect on the organizational problem (or leverage), the force should be applied as far away from the problem as possible. In the case of projects the more time you have, the more likely you will be successful. This distance is a factor of when the team is empowered to actually solve the problem (or complete the project). In many instances, someone has seen a problem coming for years. However, fear, politics, or some other cultural issue keeps anyone from trying to solve it, until it is too late to be effective. Then, we apply our force at the point where the tool will not properly work.

Step Six, Excellent Change Management and Continuous Improvement,

You can not have excellent management with out mastering change. Project management is all about implementing a change. All changes bring a natural dip in productivity, morale, quality, or some other negative effect, as seen in Figure 6.. Call this cocoon/chrysalis stage or the Valley of Despair. The Seven Attributes are the tool to use to help your organization minimize the cocoon phase of the change. The point is this, you can do things to minimize the negative effects of change and maximize the positive aspects of continuous improvement.

Figure 6, The Change Process

Step Seven, Excellent Performance Measures

You cannot manage what you cannot measure. This Westbrook Stevens Seven-Step Performance Measure process is a consolidation of the work of over sixty different papers/documents/books on the subject.

Step 1: Understand the science behind performance measures. There are many rules related to good metrics. Understand the rules before you start the process of developing a set for an organization. Related to projects, PMI has simplified this for us by giving us a list of appropriate project management tools and metrics.

Step 2: Understand the goals of the organization. One should never develop performance measures that will not track back to specific organizational goals.

Step 3: Create a set of criteria (e.g., lower cost, better quality, faster service) that reflect the goals you are trying to achieve.

Step 4: Create the performance indicators (hours worked, number of complaints about a specific subject) related to the criteria that will give a picture of company performance.

Step 5: Collect the data related to the indicators.

Step 6: Analyze the data to determine the performance.

Step 7: Use the data to make a difference.

Miss any step and there is no reason to measure. If you do not know the rules, chances are you will break them and make things worse. If you measure something not related to a goal, then you are wasting time and money. If you are never going to use the information, you again are wasting time, money and causing cultural problems.

Bottom Line:

Here is how it all fits together. Leaders have to lead. Without “Leadership,” nothing else happens. “Leadership” is more than a couple of people at the top. It is everyone’s job. Everyone has to help make things happen. You have to empower everyone to make decisions, at the lowest possible levels to make everything happen faster. However, someone at the top has to paint the vision.

Next is “Culture.” Organizational culture is the string or cable that holds it all together. Unless the company’s culture buys into what you are trying to accomplish, your vision will not happen. It simply will never happen. If you do not work on the culture, you may as well cut the string on the mobile. Like the mobile, your organization will fall apart. Systems are important, but culture can cause the perfect system to fail. The organizational culture has to support our paradigm of employee empowerment. Everyone has to buy in. To an employee, his or her direct supervisor represents the company’s entire culture.” The company should be a great place to work for those who buy into the culture…but for those who do not, it will be better to let them go.

After “Culture,” comes the bar of “Customer focus.” The customers must be delighted, both internally and externally. Do not get suckered into the debate of who pays and who does not. The paying customers are the reason we all have jobs; everyone had better have them in mind when they do their jobs. Everyone should also think about the next person in the process chain when performing his or her duties, for eventually that chain ends with the paying customer.

At the bottom of the mobile hangs the other four attributes to balance, “Excellent Teams,” “Problem Solving,” “Continuous Improvement,” and “Performance Measurement.” Can you imagine trying to build teams without skills in problem solving or without leadership? How about starting a continuous improvement programs without performance measures? It would never work.

So next on the mobile is the dangling object that represents “Teamwork.” We have long passed the day when one person can perform all the duties required for success. It takes a number of people with different focuses to make even the simplest product a success. Build teams that focus on the customer.

“Teams” require skills to be successful. That is—skills in doing their jobs, skills in working together, and skills to make decisions, and solve problems. “Problem Solving” is one of the three objects hanging below the bar of “Customer Focus,” balancing “Teamwork,” on the mobile of Excellent Management.

Next, “Change and Continuous improvement,” the issues related to competitive longevity. The teams must continuously work to make your company the best and become better at project management. You can never be the best, unless, you continue to improve the processes and systems required to serve the customer. The organization’s culture must understand how important this is. Everyone must lead and the senior leaders must paint the vision and demonstrate its importance.

A company cannot know whether they are getting better or worse unless they measure how well they are doing (i.e., “Performance Measures”).

All these attributes must remain in balance; they are all important. You cannot remove any one of them without shortening the life of the company or the effectiveness of the projects. Just like on the mobile, remove any one piece, and it is longer a piece of art. In a company or project, remove any one and you no longer have Excellent Management. Remove Excellent Management, and you cannot remain competitive. Stop being competitive, and one day, you will no longer be a company.

1. Stevens, Craig A., and Michael Moore. Geronimo Stone: His Music, His Love, and the Mobile of Excellent Management. Coral Springs: Lumina Press, 2006.

2. Jerry D. Westbrook, “Taking a Multivariate Approach to Total Quality Management,” Industrial Management, March/April, 1993February 24, 1994.

3. Stevens, Craig; Steven Gambrell, Presentation “Work Force 2000, and the Seven Attributes of Quality Management,” American Society of Quality Control, November 9, 1995, Nashville, Tennessee. http://www.westbrookstevens.com/step_1.htm.

4. Calvin Pepper and Craig Stevens “Project Management – Maintaining Quality by Communicating,” Third International Waste Management Conference, ASQC, Las Vegas, Nevada, 92 http://www.westbrookstevens.com/culture.htm  -

5. Craig A. Stevens, "Managing Work Force 2000," 36th Annual Tennessee Quality Conference, Sponsored by the University of Tennessee, American Society of Quality Control, The Tennessee Quality Award, and The Tri-Cities Institute of Industrial Engineers, at The University of Tennessee Conference Center, Knoxville, Tennessee, March 11, 1995.

6. Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, “Diversity, Creating a Single Company Culture in a Multi-Cultural Society,” National Management Association, August 15, 1995, Portsmouth, Ohio. - http://www.westbrookstevens.com/culture.htm.

7. Mark Sanborn – Team building Career Track Tape Set http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/marksanborn.html.

8. Words of Dr. Jerry Westbrook, director of the Engineering Management, Industrial, and Systems Engineering Program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, during his classes on Quality Management 1995.

OTHER MATERIAL USED
 

1. Collins, James C. and Jerry I. Porras. Built-to-Last, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.

2. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, "Moving Through the Three Phases of Organizational Change," Industrial Management Magazine, Institute of Industrial Engineers, July/August 1992.

3. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, Presentation, "TQM: The What and Why Important to Technical Communications," East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Technical Communications (STC), Knoxville, Tennessee, January 25, 1994.

4. Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation, Full Day Session on "Managing Work Force 2000." "Part 1, Forecasting Work Force 2000" and "Part 2, Managing Work Force 2000," WATTec '94, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, February 24, 1994.

5. Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation, "Managing Change - Creating a Vision and Moving to that Vision," sponsored by the National Presidents Program of WATTec, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Innovative Resources and Systems (IRaS) at WATTec, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, February 1993.

6. Stevens, Craig; Steven Gambrell, Presentation “Work Force 2000, and the Six Attributes of Quality Management,” American Society of Quality Control, November 9, 1995, Nashville, Tennessee.

7. Stevens, Craig A, Presentation "Performance Measurements for Quality Improvement," Sponsored by The US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Operations, Federal Building, October 26, 1994.

8. Westbrook, Jerry, Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs, Grover Smithwick, Presentation, “Quality Management in Government," sponsored by The Department of Energy, DOE Federal Building, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, November 4, 1994.

9. Westbrook, Jerry D., Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs, “Quality Management In Government,” National Quality Month Presentation, US DOE, Oak Ridge Operations, Oak Ridge Tennessee, November 4, 1993. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, Presentation, "TQM: The What and Why Important to Technical Communications," East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Technical Communications (STC), Knoxville, Tennessee, January 25, 1994.

Step 3: Using the Westbrook Attributes for “Quality of Management” to Understand and Maximize Organizational Change Effectiveness and Efficiency 

Craig A. Stevens[1]

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Management of Technology Program, Vanderbilt University;

NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center

(through contract with ASRI);

American Management Association International;

Westbrook Stevens  

Abstract -- Several years ago, after researching several linear feet of past writings on quality, Dr. Jerry Westbrook, formed a theory about the popular quality management trends found in Total Quality Management (TQM). He described this often hard to understand program using six attributes that made it easy to implement.  The attributes are Culture, Customer Focus, Team Building, Problem Solving, Continuous Improvement, and Performance Measures.  These same Westbrook Attributes, plus one (Leadership) we added, can be applied to understand the “quality of management” in general (or “good management”).   This is important, for, if good management could be defined and described using a set of easy to understand attributes, then a systematic and repeatable approach to the  implementation of improvement programs would be easier to address.  If improvement is easier to address, then successful change programs are more achievable.  If success is more achievable, then the likelihood of realizing the benefits of a change is higher, translating to improved profits, increased employee morale, and international competitiveness.  In this paper we will review the effort that was done to verify the Westbrook Attributes and explain how these attributes have been used as a tool to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of several organizations.

   Consider the following scenario: The word’s out…Your company has been around for just about 45 years.  During this time, the company has grown and prospered under the watchful eye of a heavy-handed business genius, affectionately known as the “Old Man.” He has created not just a company, but a family.  Starting with nothing, he dragged the company through many competitive and strategic battles to grow a strong business.  Business is booming, but…it’s time for him to step down.  He wants to retire, but who will take his place?  When asked in the past, he often reasoned that he never needed to develop leaders, as they would have just gotten in the way of his decisions.  Today there are fewer and fewer good leaders and managers, and time is running out. 

     The truth is… it is already too late.  One cannot expect to find the perfect person to take over and replace a legend.  In the book Built to Last, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras explained that those companies that have had a lasting impact have had certain things in common.  One of their points is that companies “built-to-last” are organized to continue to prosper even as leaders changed (not based on “time tellers” but rather “clock builders”). These organizations are not reliant on great leaders who have all of the answers (like the time tellers who could miraculously tell time by looking at the sky 100 percent of the time). Rather, they possess entire organizational structures that could lead the company to success (more like clocks that could tell time long after the time teller is gone). 

     The Westbrook Attributes.  The original Westbrook Attributes were designed by Dr. Jerry Westbrook, chair of the Engineering Management, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  He used these attributes to describe the popular quality management description of Total Quality Management (TQM).  He published his theory in the article "Taking a Multivariate Approach to Total Quality Management," Industrial Management, March/April, 1993.  Although the name Total Quality Management or TQM is less popular today than seven years ago, quality management as a concept is still sound and the Westbrook Attributes can be applied to quality management in general and better yet to the “quality of management” or, good management.  Furthermore, these attributes can be used to bring us closer to describing a systematic approach to management in the 21^st Century.

The slip in TQM’s popularity was directly related to two major problems. The first problem was the difficulty in defining TQM.  Being hard to define lead to the second problem, which was that very few organizations seemed to have ever understood the complete set of attributes required to succeed in its implementation. The problem facing people in understanding “good management” is very similar to the one related to understanding TQM.

    Everyone knows quality (good) managers and leaders are important but few understand, the full scope and the attributes required to succeed in implementing a program to develop good managers.  This may be directly related to the massive amount of sometimes-conflicting information related on the subject.  To just understand its basic description is very confusing.  There are no common formulas, descriptions or general approaches.  

Much of the work to create the systematic approach has already been achieved by Dr. Westbrook’s previous work.  During his research, Dr. Westbrook reviewed hundreds of documents and within these articles, papers and books he found some similarities.  He observed that all of the writings related to TQM could be explained using at least one of the following six attributes:

1.       Culture,

2.       Customer Focus,

3.       Teams,

4.       Problem Solving Tools/Techniques,

5.       Measurement, and

6.       Continuous Improvement.

His theory was that one could use these six attributes to describe TQM in a way that would satisfy most of the existing definitions.  Furthermore, these six attributes would give practitioners a framework on which to build a program and a way to easily communicate these ideas to others. 

Later I developed the graphics related to the Westbrook Attributes for a presentation on “Quality Management in Government” for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Operations Office (1993).  Using an artist’s mobile, Dr. Westbrook and I were able to graphical describe the interrelationships of these six attributes.  On a mobile, remove any one piece and the system is out of balance.  Likewise, remove any one of these attributes within an organization and the organization itself is out of balance, making the entire process less effective.  As in the mobile, in an organization, no one attribute will work alone.  A mobile can also be used to visualize the simplicity of these attributes in communicating good management to an audience of employees, see Exhibit 1.

I added a seventh attribute when Bruce Brevard, a colleague and U.S. Naval officer, challenged us to consider leadership as a missing attribute instead of including it in the culture attribute.  Using a massive search of material and creating a database to store and retrieve the data compiled from this broader literature search and then using a Design of Experiment statistical approach, I discovered: 

1. that:each of the Attributes seemed to be reflected in the body of the information collected, however,  

2. the possible missing attribute of “Leadership” was a natural and very logical addition, and 

3. there were no additional surprises (or new undiscovered attributes that were needed) within the literature reviewed.

 Exhibit 1: Westbrook Stevens Mobile of Good Management

The Change Management Connection

     In the first two Steps of this session, we talked about trends, change and the organizational elements that will be affected by change.  In each case we looked at the process of change and talked about how a natural dip occurs in productivity, morale and quality, seen in Exhibit 2.  The Westbrook Attributes (with the addition of the new seventh attribute) are the tool to use to help your organization minimize the cocoon phase of the change.

During the past few years, we have developed a full day’s workshop on each attribute and have found that one of the most effective uses of an organization’s self improvement time has been during facilitation of a review of each attribute.  As a team, we compare the operation’s current business with each attribute and develop an action plan for improvement.

A large amount of time could easily be spent describing each of these attributes in great detail, however this paper would then become a book.  Instead, lets take a quick look at the necessary attributes for good management and touch on a couple in more detail.

Exhibit 2, The Change Process

Leadership:

The addition of Leadership as a seventh attribute to the six Westbrook Attributes helps to round off the set by adding an enabling force to drive good management.  Leadership as an attribute becomes the first step in the process bumping culture down to the second step.

Graphically, leadership becomes a hand, holding the mobile’s string of culture.  As with the mobile, if the hand is absent the mobile is stationary.  However, symbolically with the hand, the mobile can change position, moving about the room.  Likewise without leadership in an organization, the best that will be experienced is to competitively stay in one spot while losing competitive advantages.  With good leadership, the vision, the mission, and direction is clear and the organization has competitive mobility. 

To define good management we must start with leadership.  Think outside of the box and define leadership broadly.  It is more than just a few people at the top and more than just natural charismatic people in charge.  Leadership should be expressed as a part of every employee’s job.  In the words of Victor Dingus, a one time quality manager at Tennessee Eastman, 

 “We used to have 14,000 people and only about 400 were paid to think.  Our goal is to have 14,000 people paid to think.”

 
    When developing Managers and leaders one must think in terms of a step-by-step layering approach.  Managers must understand people, an understanding that can only develop over time.  This understanding will only occur with perseverance fueled by a commitment.  I can not bring someone off the street, take him or her to Vanderbilt and force them to get an education.  Likewise, you can not force someone to become a leader and “empower” them. Accordingly, the first step is commitment to achieve that desire or goal.  The commitment must be from both the company and the people, as in Exhibit 3 (Pepper and Stevens 1993).

Exhibit 3, Incubating Leaders

     After the leader/manager is ready to deal with people, the results are based on leadership.  As demonstrated in Exhibit 4, to get people to do what is needed requires another step-by-step process.  Leadership is the foundation, with the following layers leading to better results:

1. Communication of Information/Goals/Expectations

2. This leads to trust and confidence

3. After one is ready to trust, one is also ready to invest time in education and training

4. After one is trained, then empowerment is possible and ownership and cooperation in the decision making process should be expected

5. Evaluation will only occur after this point

6. Recognition should follow when good “efforts” have been achieved.

 Exhibit 4, Key’s to Achieving Results

Organizational Culture:

The organization’s “culture” is the next attribute in the Westbrook Stevens Mobile of Good Management. Culture can be compared to the string on which the mobile hangs, without which the mobile falls apart.  Likewise, without a good working culture, an organization will never greatly benefit from programs like TQM, continuous improvement, Six Sigma, quality management or any system or process.  If a good working culture is not addressed or developed, it is equivalent to cutting the string holding the mobile.  When the cultural string is cut, the program will fall apart.  Many programs have failed because no one ever considered the difficulty of creating a competitive culture.  In the literature searches authors used the following words and concepts when talking about an organization’s culture:

1. Language used (sometimes technological or use of acronyms)

2. artifacts and symbols (those things like parking places with names on them)

3. subcultures (groups of people who hang out together)

4. patterns of behavior 

5. basic underlying assumptions (how one feels about certain subjects)

6. values and ethics

7. supporting partnerships

8. supporting communication

9. focus of the company (i.e., on quality, safety, etc.)

10. how a company is embracing change and hyperchange

11. valuing employee satisfaction

12. celebrations of success

13. supporting training and education

14. high standards and expectations

15. supporting empowerment

16. supporting employee participation

17. management and relationship philosophies

18. quality mind-set and quality orientation

One of Westbrook’s studies showed that of all the original six attributes, culture is the limiting force.  It will restrict the implementation and improvement of each of the other attributes.

Customer Focus:

“Customer Focus” is the next step.  Since the customer is the only reason you have a job, if you are not willing to satisfy the customer…then you might as well go home; you are not needed.  So we label the bar of the mobile on which the other elements hang, “Customer Focus.”  With the mobile, the bar is important, without it there is nothing on which to hang the other elements.  Likewise, an organization without customer focus there is no clear goal on which to hang the organization’s work. The customer is the reason for and the driving force behind an organization’s mission.  Accordingly, the customer is where an organization should focus its work.  In the literature searches, the following words and concepts were used when talking about customers:

1. public

2. suppliers

3. clients

4. partnership

5. stakeholders and stockholders

6. employees  and management

7. training in customer focus

8. external and Internal

     Many people make all kinds of arguments on the difference between internal and external customers, stakeholders and customers, customers and clients, and on and on and on.  Labels aside, the point simply is, who are the people you are trying to attract, satisfy, serve, communicate with or hand your product/service/work off to?  Who is next in line to receive your efforts?  Do your job to make this group happy or find a job you can do!  We must forget the weak justifications and excuses and think outside of the box.

The Bottom Of The Mobile:

At the bottom of the mobile are the other four attributes that have to be in balance:

• Teams

• Problem Solving

• Continuous Improvement

• Performance Measurement.

     Can you imagine trying to build teams without skill in problem solving or without leadership?  How about starting a continuous improvement program without performance measures?  It would never work. 

On the mobile, we have placed a box called teams on one side of the mobile and three boxes called continuous improvement, measurement, and problem solving on the other side.  If we remove any one of these boxes, at best the mobile is out of balance. 

If an organization disregards any one of these attributes the management is incomplete.  To continuously improve requires a team approach using problem solving tools and techniques.  Without the proper problem solving tools the teams are ineffective and continuous improvement is not going to happen.  Without performance measures one never knows if things are improving or getting worse.  We might as well go home and work on our house, if our efforts are not centered on the customer.  This will never happen in any organization unless the organizational culture allows it and the leadership has to fully understand the process so they can paint the vision and lead the effort.

Teams:

Much work has been done to understand teams and teamwork.  Think in terms of the broader issues of getting people to work together.  In the literature, the following terms were commonly found in discussions on teams:

1. partnership and empowerment

2. training for teams

3. employee participation

4. customer participation

5. supplier participation

6. self directed teams

7. teams with leadership

8. teams being facilitated

9. management teams

 Problem Solving:

Problem solving is a powerful attribute.  Think of problem solving in the broader sense of the skills and core competencies to do a good job, such as problem solving tools and skills.  The literature included words such as:

1. system concept

2. training in using tools

3. skills and training

4. building core competencies

5. tools and processes

6. project management tools

     One tool I developed to use to explain organizational problem solving to technically-oriented people, is the Organizational Problem Solving Lever in Exhibit 5. 

If we could view an organization’s problem or barrier as a large weight that has to be moved, then a set problem solving tools could be viewed as the lever and fulcrum that is used to move the weight.  The lever itself is only as strong as the choice of problem solving tools being applied.  No one tool does all things.  The closer the fulcrum is to the weight, the more leverage one has in moving the weight.  The fulcrum gets closer as the teams’ skills in using the tool increases.  The force that is applied to the lever is a function of the teamwork and communication.  To have optimal effect on the organizational problem (or leverage), the force should be applied as far away from the problem as possible.  This distance is a factor of when the team was empowered to actually solve the problem.  In many instances, someone has seen a problems coming for years.  However, fear, politics or some other cultural issue keeps us from trying to solve it until it is too late to be effective.  Then, we apply our force at the point where the tool will not properly work.

Exhibit 5, Problem Solving Lever

 Continuous Improvement:

Continuous Improvement in the broadest terms means getting better or improving.  Here, we are talking about all aspects of changes -- changes that are evolutionary as well as revolutionary.  In the literature, many different terms are used to describe this attribute, including:

1.  Kaizen

2. training in improvement

3. systems concept

4. innovation , change, and hyperchange

5. striving toward error-free performance

6. control of process variation

7. change management

8. revolutionary and evolutionary change

 Performance Measures:

Performance measures are important to judge our progress.  The literature uses many terms to describe metrics such as: 

1. error-free performance

2. value/price/cost ratios

3. quality assessment/assurance

4. surveys and feedback

5. benchmarks and benchmarking

6. excellence and measurement training

7. stockholders value

8. individual performance

     The seven-step process we developed, after reading over sixty different authors on the subject, to help organizations implement performance measures in service organizations are as follows:

Step 1:    Understand the science behind performance measures.  There are many rules related to good metrics, which should be understood before one starts the process of developing a set for an organization.

Step 2:    Understand the goals of the organization.  One should never develop performance measures that will not track back to specific organizational goals.

Step 3:    Create a set of criteria (lower cost, better quality, faster service) that reflect the goals you are trying to achieve. 

Step 4:    Create the performance indicators (hours worked, number of complaints about a specific subject) related to the criteria that should be collected to give an idea of company performance. 

Step 5:    Collect the data related to the indicators. 

Step 6:    Analyze the data to determine the performance.

 Step 7:    Use the data to make a difference. 

    Miss any one step and there is no reason to measure.  If you do not know the rules, chances are you will break them and make things worse.  If you measure something not related to a goal, then you are wasting time and money.  If you are never going to use the information, you again are wasting time, money and causing cultural problems.

Bottom Line:

1. Change will happen and bring with it a dip in performance.

2. Using the good management mobile is one way to minimize this dip in performance.

3. Each of the attributes is only one small part in the overall picture and each attribute is important to make the whole process work.

1. Collins, James C. and Jerry I. Porras. Built-to-Last, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.

2. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, "Moving Through the Three Phases of Organizational Change," Industrial Management Magazine, Institute of Industrial Engineers, July/August 1992.

3. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, Presentation, "TQM: The What and Why Important to Technical Communications," East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Technical Communications (STC), Knoxville, Tennessee, January 25, 1994.

4. Pepper, Calvin  and Craig Stevens “Project Management – Maintaining Quality by Communicating,” Third International Waste Management Conference, ASQC, Las Vegas, Nevada, 92.

5. Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation, Full Day Session on "Managing Work Force 2000." "Part 1, Forecasting Work Force 2000" and "Part 2, Managing Work Force 2000," WATTec '94, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, February 24, 1994.

6. Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation, "Managing Change - Creating a Vision and Moving to that Vision," sponsored by the National Presidents Program of WATTec, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and Innovative Resources and Systems (IRaS) at WATTec, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, February 1993. 

7. Stevens, Craig; Steven Gambrell, Presentation  “Work Force 2000, and the Six Attributes of Quality Management,” American Society of Quality Control, November 9, 1995, Nashville, Tennessee.

8. Stevens, Craig A,. Presentation "Performance Measurements for Quality Improvement," Sponsored by The US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Operations, Federal Building, October 26, 1994.

9. Jerry D. Westbrook,  “Taking a Multivariate Approach to Total Quality Management,” Industrial Management, March/April, 1993.

10. Westbrook, Jerry, Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs, Grover Smithwick, Presentation, “Quality Management in Government," sponsored by The Department of Energy, DOE Federal Building, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, November 4, 1994.

11. Westbrook, Jerry D., Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs, “Quality Management In Government,” National Quality Month Presentation, US DOE, Oak Ridge Operations, Oak Ridge Tennessee, November 4, 1993.

Old Bio of Craig A. Stevens has worked as a consultant with every possible level of worker and management and with over 100 different organizations.  Mr. Stevens has experienced a wide variety of organizational environments including: health care, hotel/motel/restaurant, retail, manufacturing, education, agriculture, government, and services of all kinds, from extremely high technology to virtually no technology, in about 25 different states.  Currently, Mr. Stevens is busy:  (1) He teaches Change Management, Technological Innovation, Manufacturing and Project Management classes at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Management of Technology Program; (2) He is an Organizational Development Coordinator for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center through a contract with ASRI; (3) He is a corporate trainer/consultant for the American Management Association International (AMA) where he teaches Project/Program Management courses;  (4) He is a partner in the consulting firm of Westbrook Stevens; (5) He is assisting in the development of 5 start-up (with a combined income potential well over a billion dollars); and (6) He co-authors with Dr. Jerry Westbrook an executive management column for Ag-Knowledge Magazine.  He hopes to soon complete his dissertation for a Ph.D. in Engineering Management at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  He received his MS (1985) and BS (1983) from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in Engineering Management and Industrial Engineering.  And, he has three kids, one wife, two cats and is tired… but a good kind of tired.

Craig A. Stevens, 2000